When Loss Gets Out of Control

Most plane crashes are the result of "cascading failures." A cascading failure is an accumulation of small errors and breakdowns that result in a catastrophic event. The instructions for an airport procedure are not written in the first language of the ground personnel. A door is improperly latched. Some cargo is not quite secured as it should be. A plane is required to take some evasive action because of a momentary lapse in attention. Shift! Bang! Boom! Crash!

So far, the investigations of the Germanwings crash have not revealed any possible mechanical or structural issues that led to the disaster. Nonetheless, this catastrophe may also have been caused by a cascading failure. The copilot at the controls of the Germanwings flight is reported, by anonymous sources, to have been suffering from depression and personal losses. We may learn the truth of this, or we may not. But we know that losses accumulate and can overwhelm the resources of even the most resilient person.

Losses accumulate. It is hard enough to lose a relationship through a breakup or a death. But life has a way of adding to such a loss. Perhaps a job change follows. Or I move into a different house. And my relationships with friends, family, neighbors and co-workers change. My standard of living may suffer. My hopes and dreams for the future no longer apply. Each of those losses--and the multiple little losses in any given day--pile one on top of another. 

Our losses don't merely add up. The more losses we experience, the greater is our sensitivity to the next actual or potential loss. So there's a real sense in which our losses are non-linear. There comes a point where the line of the graph becomes a curve. And then there is the point where that curve seems to go straight up to infinity. In my personal experience, that is the moment where taking one's life can seem like the most reasonable thing to do.

That non-linear character means that our sensitivity to loss increases with each loss we experience. And the sensitivity itself increases more each time. This is the "compound interest" effect of accumulating losses. After the loss of a loved one, we may worry about losing other relationships as well. The likelihood of that happening is as low as it was a year ago or a decade ago. But my sensitivity to the possibility--my anxiety that others will leave me somehow--becomes horrifically magnified. In the midst of consecutive losses, I will do almost anything to avoid the risk of another loss.

So what can we do in the face of emotional cascade failures? We need to spread out the load we bear. This is the wisdom, limited as it is, of making few changes in one's life after a major loss. At least that reduces the potential for additional losses and spreads out the impact of current losses over a greater time. So we may become more careful about how we invest ourselves in new relationships. 

The downside of that approach is that it has no sensitivity to potential gains. Loss experiences make us loss-focused. But a few gains can reduce that sensitivity if we can muster up the courage to take some low-level risks after loss. 

That being said, we can also spread out the load we bear by sharing that load with others. In times of loss, the presence of accepting friends and family can be critical to survival. This is another way to keep the loss sensitivity graph from going vertical.

We can be aware of our native abilities to absorb loss and move on afterwards. We come with varying degrees of natural resiliency, and it's good to be aware of just how much we can actually take. I found that I was more resilient than I thought. I learned to push through pain to a greater degree. I learned that our loss sensitivity can often decrease fairly quickly if we're just patient with ourselves. And for those who struggle with resiliency, it may be important to have a ready support system on stand-by for those times when the graph threatens to reach to infinity.

I have no idea if any of this was true for the Germanwings copilot. We are best served to wait for real information and to resist the pseudo-information of anonymous sources. But it is an opportunity to reflect on how we respond to major personal losses and how we might build greater capacity for healthy responses to our personal catastrophes.